“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
~Ephesians 2:19-20
Every action has a consequence… Some consequences are good, some are bad, and some seem to have no impact. We often think of consequences as only bad, which leads us to worry that our actions will bring a negative result. The consequence of faith in Christ Jesus is that the Trinity brings salvation upon us, to us, and through us.
Surprisingly, salvation is often misunderstood by Christians and non-Christians alike.
Christians often see salvation as a means to an end, like getting one’s ticket punched to go to Heaven. This type of salvation incorporates a set of limitations based upon a ‘then and there’ mentality rather than the ‘here and now’ paradigm that Paul—like Jesus as recorded in John 10:10—speaks about earlier in the first chapter of Ephesians.
Any builder will tell you that the foundation is the key to building anything substantial with long-term viability.
The integrity of a building requires intentional investment into the foundation. Everything that follows is important to the structure. But without attention to the initial details, the integrity and success of everything that follows after is in jeopardy should one skimp on those details.
God does not skimp. There is an old saying that the Devil is in the details, but I believe we find the Devil when we ignore the details; that is the heart of the warning in the adage.
God built a spiritual kingdom upon the prophets and the law to return us morally to the foundation He laid before the beginning of time; the foundation we walked away from when mankind rejected God in the Garden of Eden. We became the ones who skimped.
Let’s return to the positive consequences of our actions to accept Christ as Savior…
Every action has a consequence. The consequences of Christ's self-sacrifice and resurrection are mind-blowing universal reconciliation. Sin drives things apart, whereas God invites all things back into order and beauty.
Consequently, we are now citizens; experiencing all of the rights, privileges, blessings, communications, understandings, and opportunities offered by the One sovereign above us: The Treasure Map of Blessings. Blessings of the here and now with the promise of eternal future. Blessings of hope. Blessings of faith. Blessings to no longer walk alone apart from God. Our citizenship, as Paul says elsewhere in Philippians 3:20, is in Heaven as we dwell now on this Earth.
Which passport do you willingly operate through?
Set aside 10 minutes of your morning and 10 minutes of your evening to contemplate the following:
- What does it mean to be a citizen of Heaven?
- Do I live as one from an earthly perspective, or from a heavenly perspective?
- How can I shift the balance toward living a life that reflects my identity in Christ?
- Write down your reflections and make plans and take action to create that shift.
*There is a difference between asking God to reveal His will IN your life and FOR your life. The first one conveys a constant activity of including God in the equation, and the second conveys a summation or final destination. Living life to the fullest means involving God's will IN our lives each day.
